


Getting Through It

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-16
Updated: 2010-08-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassie has some questions about Janet's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting Through It

She knocks on the door tentatively. She’s never been here before and suddenly wonders if it’s a good idea to be here now.

While she waits for the door to open, she casts her gaze around the outside of the house. Compact, well cared for, fairly anonymous in a street full of similarly anonymous houses.

You could easily lose yourself in a neighborhood like this. Maybe that’s why he chose it when he … came back.

There’s no answer to her initial knock, so she tries again, rapping harder this time.

Perhaps this is a mistake. There’s a reason people hole up and turn their backs when bad things happen.

If this is his way of coping, she’s intruding. She clutches her purse tighter and is just turning to walk away when she hears the door creak on its hinges.

She turns to see Daniel open the door with an irritated expression on his face, looking for all the world as though the words, “Thanks, I don’t need insurance, new windows or carpet cleaner, now leave me the hell alone,” are about to spill from his tightly drawn mouth.

But when he meets her eyes, when the fact that it is her standing there registers, his manner is instantly transformed.

“Cassie,” he says, the warmth in his voice as evident as the genuine smile.

She smiles back. It feels odd to smile. She hasn’t smiled much in the past three weeks. He looks tired. She wonders if he’s been sleeping as badly as she has.

“Hi.” And suddenly, words desert her. Why, why, why has she come here? This so isn’t a good idea.

Daniel pulls the door open wider. “It’s great to see you. Come in.” He waves her in, a gesture of welcome that seems born out a need to do something with his hands.

He talks a lot with his hands.

Cassie, on the other hand, just talks a lot, full stop. Her “engage mouth before activating brain” tendencies have gotten in her into trouble more than once.

Yep, talks waaay too much sometimes, her mom says. Said. Used to say. She can’t get used to the change of tense. It’ll take a while.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she says, for something to say, and because it sounds like the right thing and all grown-up.

“No, no, no. Not at all. I’m just … working.” He kind of shrugs. Like he should apologize for that. “Come on in. I was just about to stop for coffee.”

Cassie follows him into the living room. It’s functional, and not much more. Chairs, a sofa that’s littered with the Sunday papers, even though it’s Tuesday, a sound system that came out of the Ark, and a small coffee table with the remnants of a pizza that has a little pile of anchovies on it.

“Take a seat.” Daniel hastily gathers up a pile of books from one of the armchairs. “I’ll go switch on the coffeemaker. Um, coffee OK? I have tea. Somewhere. I think.” Tea was close to blasphemy, seemingly.

“Coffee’s great but do you have soda instead?” Coffee gives her a headache. Her mom drinks gallons of the stuff. Drank.

“Um. There may be some Sprite lurking. Could be flat. Will that do?”  He dumps the books on the dining table in the corner, where his laptop is open.

“Great. Oh, wait. I’ve got an idea. You got any ice cream?”

Daniel’s brows knit together. “Ah. Probably.”

“Perfect. I’ll make us a Snow White. Better for you than coffee. You know how mom always …” She swallows. She hadn’t meant to mention her mom, at least not yet. Just slipped out … she can’t seem to stop talking about her, mentioning her. Everything seems to come back to her.

Daniel smiles, a gentle, reassuring smile and shakes his head. And in a poor imitation of a soft southern drawl says, “Dr. Jackson, at the risk of sounding like the proverbial broken record, please consider cutting your caffeine intake. Think of your heart and blood pressure, and if you can’t think of that, think of me having to deal with the fallout.”

Cassie laughs out loud and the sound surprises her. It’s been a while since she heard it.

“Daniel, that is worst impression of my mom I’ve ever heard.”

Daniel winces. “Yeah. Bad, wasn’t it?”

Cassie tucks a stray strand of her long hair behind her ear. “Actually, I think it was great. No one will talk her about without using that solemn, kind of condescending tone people use with the sick or stupid. Or kids. I’m not a kid.”

“No,” Daniel says, softly, “you’re not.” He says it as though he’s just realizing that himself. “They mean well. They just don’t want to upset you, I guess.”

Daniel leads the way into the small kitchen. Considering the state of the living room, it’s surprisingly tidy, apart from a few mugs cluttering the counter by the sink. Daniel opens the refrigerator and peers inside. Reaching towards the back, he pulls out a half-full bottle of Sprite.

“I have no idea how long this has been in there and … Snow White?”

Cassie takes the bottle from him and unscrews the cap. It makes a satisfying hissing sound.

“Not totally flat. That’s good. Makes for a better float. Ice cream?”

“Ah,” he blinks, then pulls a carton from the freezer and hands it over.

“Scoop?” Cassie asks.

“No.”

She sighs and rolls her eyes. “What kind of kitchen has no ice cream scoop.”

“Mine. I prefer eating out of the carton.”

Cassie sighs again. “Men,” she says, as though that explains everything. “Glasses?”

Daniel opens a cabinet and produces two large beer glasses which he peers into and wipes with a paper towel. “Will these do?”

“Sure.”

“If you ask me for straws you know you’re going to be unlucky, don’t you?” Daniel asks. “Likewise with long handled spoons.”

“We’ll manage.”

Cassie sets about her task with a practiced hand. She’s aware of Daniel watching her, assessing. She can’t blame him. She’s come in, totally unannounced, and practically taken over his kitchen without so much as a by-your-leave.

Daniel hands her a spoon and she digs into the ice cream, producing a good-sized curl.

“You don’t have to be worried about me,” she says, her eyes sliding sideways towards him as she loads one of the glasses.

“I think we’ve earned the right to be … concerned,” he says. He leans back against the wall and crosses his arms.

“Well don’t be. I’m OK.” She adds a second scoop to the glass. “It’s not like she’s the first mom I’ve lost.”

Daniel’s head dips. When he raises it, Cassie sees that the comment has hit him hard. She lays the spoon on the counter.

“Sorry. Black humor. Or just bad humor.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s just … we’ve all lost a lot. But you’ve lost the most.” He pulls his arms more tightly around his body.

“It’s OK. I’m going for the world record. Cassie has three mommies. Sam’s now busy telling me what to do,” She picks the spoon up and savagely digs in to the frozen mass.

“She loves you, Cass. Cut her a little slack. She’s trying to do what’s right. She wants to do this. Maybe she needs to do this.”

Cassie turns to him, blue eyes ablaze. “And what about what I want? What I need? I’m 18, Daniel. Not some confused, lonely, frightened 12-year-old who has just come through the Gate. No one is asking what I _want. _They all ask how I am, how I’m coping, is there anything they can do.”

“Because right now, everyone just needs to know that you _are _OK, that you _are_ coping. Losing your mom is a big thing … losing your mom like _that _…”

He winces and a slew of emotions flash across his face, chasing each other so quickly that they can’t be identified. He yanks open a drawer a little too hard and takes out another spoon. Crossing to the ice cream tub, he excavates the dense contents, which are melting a little at the edges and the spoon goes in more easily then he anticipates.

And now there’s tension where moments ago there was ice cream and easy companionship. She feels awkward, unsure. This adult territory is trickier than it looks.

“Snow White?” Daniel asks again, as Cassie pours Sprite into the glasses. It fizzes pleasingly. “If you need the dwarves to go with it, I suggest Jack for Grumpy.” Daniel reaches for a dishcloth as the Sprite overflows in one of the glasses.

Cassie snorts, relieved that Daniel’s managed to ease the tension. Relieved that she can still laugh like this.

“Of course, he’d retaliate then by casting me as Sneezy, despite the fact my allergies haven’t been an issue for years.”

“OK. You’re excused dwarf duty. As long as Teal’c can be Happy. He’s so totally Happy.”

Then it’s Daniel’s turn to laugh and, as he does, Cassie realizes that it’s a sound she doesn’t equate with him. She’s not sure he’s ever heard him laugh. It’s nice. It suits him.

“You should laugh more often. Your laugh is cool,” she says.

Daniel smiles as he hands her one of the now-full glasses.

“General Hammond can be Doc because he’s in charge and Sergeant Siler can be Dopey,” Cassie expounds, warming to the subject.

Daniel coughs. “Yes. And I’ll let _you _tell him that little nugget of news.” He picks up his glass. Cassie examines hers and runs a finger up the side to catch the mixture of soda and ice cream that is running down. She licks her finger. “Tastes good,” she says. “Mom’s speciality. Although she prefers it with root beer.”

She notices Daniel doesn’t call her on use of the present tense.

They stand for a moment, admiring their handiwork.

“Wanna take this outside? It’s still warm out back,” Daniel says, nodding towards the back door.

“Sure.”

Daniel picks up two clean spoons and she follows him into the small yard. There’s a table and two chairs on a small deck, overlooking a tiny lawn, edged with narrow flower borders. Neat, tidy, anonymous. This could be anyone’s house, Cassie thinks. That’s just what it is. A house. Not a home. She feels a little sad.

The house she shares –shared – with her mom is a real home, full of junk and shoes and littered with the silk scarves they share because they are the only clothes five-foot-nine-inches Cassie can share with her much smaller mom.

They sit down, just as the late afternoon sun disappears behind a big, high cloud, but there is still some warmth left in the late summer day.

Cassie takes a sip of her float and says “Mmmm” appreciatively. Daniel follows suit. It leaves him with an ice cream moustache.

Cassie bites her lip and points to his face. “You’ve got, um, some ice cream …”

He wipes it away with the back of his hand. “Next time, give a guy some warning that you’re abut to turn his kitchen into an ice cream parlor and I’ll buy a couple of those special spoons. Save further embarrassment,” he says, trying and failing to sound miffed.

“Deal,” Cassie says brightly, and lapses into silence.

The lazy drone of a lawnmower and the bark of a distant dog are the only sounds to be heard. It’s peaceful here.

“Jack doesn’t know what to say to me,” Cassie says, surprising herself because she really hadn’t been thinking about that.

“Jack … isn’t very good at talking about personal things. Especially when those personal things hurt him, too.” Daniel toys with the spoon, tapping it on the rapidly melting scoop of vanilla.

“He gives great hugs though, when you’re feeling sad,” she says, because he does and because she doesn’t want Daniel to think badly of Jack.

“Yes,” Daniel says quietly, “he does.” And he’s far away for a moment. Lost in his own thoughts.

“No one will tell me exactly what happened,” Cassie says equally quietly.

She knows, without a doubt now, that this is why she’s here. Why she made herself come here when her finest instincts told her not to. Because this will hurt.

Beside her, Daniel tenses.

 “You were there,” Cassie continues, inexorably. “I know you were there when it happened. How did she … what happened to my mom, Daniel?” She lowers her voice still further, laces it with just the right amount of pleading. She’s fighting dirty she knows, but she _has_ to know.

“Cass,” he says, and his voice is husky and laden with pain, “I’m not allowed to tell you. It’s …”

“Classified. I know. That’s all they ever say.” Her voice is rising and any minute she feels she might lose it completely. “But I know so much that’s classified already. I know about the Gate and the SGC and hey, hello, aliens.”

“Cassie.” He says her name gently, puts a hand on her arm, but she pulls it away. She doesn’t want his comfort, can’t afford to give in to it.

“I _am _classified!” Now she’s practically yelling. “And there’s a tape. I know there’s a tape because I heard people talking at the funeral. So, it’s OK for people who didn’t even know or love her to know this stuff and not me? God, I’ve kept so many secrets, Daniel, and it would have been so easy to spill sometimes. But I didn’t. I didn’t say a word, and now, this really, really important thing and they don’t _trust_ me?”

And now she’s the one talking with her arms. Waving them around, like the pain in her words isn’t enough to hammer her point home.

“My mom is dead. And that is all I know. She left for work saying we’d go out for pizza that night and promised we’d go shopping and get our hair and nails done in town on Saturday. And then, she doesn’t come home and General Hammond and some other guy are at the door and she’s gone.”  She really can’t stop any of this now.

“I said before that no one asks me what I want. And no one asks me because they know that all I want is to know what happened to her.” She hears the crack in her own voice, feels the first fat, hot tears start to fall, and she swipes them away angrily.

Because she’s not a kid.

 “They keep saying she died a hero. I need more.” Cassie is talking to the table now because she can’t bear to see what’s in Daniel’s eyes. Pain? Pity? She doesn’t want his pity. She can cope with all of this if she could just _know._

Daniel is silent. At first, she thinks maybe he’s weighing the pros and cons, deciding whether to break the rules. Tell her. But the silence stretches and stretches and finally she lifts her eyes and sees … oh God … Daniel’s face is wet.

He appears older somehow, and his face is … pale and unreadable, blank, like a canvas waiting for emotional brushstrokes to bring it to life. And his tears are falling slowly, silently. He makes no effort to brush them away.

“Daniel,” she whispers.

And then he starts talking.

“There was an airman down. It was bad; we could tell from the second we got to him. There was enemy fire all around. Janet worked to stabilize her patient. Simon. His name is Simon. He couldn’t be moved. She called in our situation and then … it came out of nowhere. The blast hit her, took her down. She made this … sound.  I called for a medic but I knew it was too late. I knew that but I kept yelling anyway.” He’s not looking at Cassie, not looking at anything, and his voice … it doesn’t sound like him.

_This isn’t right. Oh God, I didn’t think this would happen …_

“She didn’t suffer, Cass. She didn’t know what hit her.”

_I’m sorry, Daniel._

 “Daniel, it’s OK. Stop. You don’t have …”

Daniel frowns, turns his head away, breathes out through his mouth and brings his arm up to dry his face. And it appears that every single component move physically hurts and drains him. “That’s it. You know it all now. Simon survived because of Janet and he’s fine. Your mom died doing her job. I’m not sure if that makes her a hero.” He pauses, then adds, his voice low and a little angry, “I’ve said too much and it still might not be enough.” His frown deepens and he looks as if he might say something else, then he pushes back his chair and walks into the house.

Cassie sits for a moment. She’s stunned and too distressed for Daniel to take in exactly what he’s said.

The dog that was barking intermittently is now yapping incessantly. It’s loud and intrusive and she can’t think beyond how she wants the noise to stop. She’s gripping the arms of the chair so tightly that her hands hurt, so she forces her fingers to let go and tries to reconnect with her body. She feels strangely disconnected, like she did when Hammond took her hand and sat her down on the sofa that awful Thursday afternoon. She thinks she might be in shock.

She sits a while longer. A lazy wind gets up and the lack of sun, which is now firmly behind a bank of cloud, makes her feel cold. At least, she thinks that’s what making her shiver.

After maybe after five minutes, when she feels she has some measure of control, she picks up the glasses and goes back into the kitchen.

She feels tired. Not just tired, exhausted; and she doesn’t feel at all grown up.

Daniel is nowhere to be seen. Maybe she should just go but that doesn’t feel right. So she walks slowly from room to room and finally finds him in the garage.

He’s sorting through a box, looking for something.

She hangs back by the open door, uncertain of what to say or do.  He senses she’s there and. without diverting from his task says, “I knew it was here,” and flourishes a photograph.

“It’s Janet, taken in the first year I knew her at a barbecue at Jack’s place.” He holds out the picture and Cassie takes it from him.

Janet is smiling, that huge smile that made her cheeks dimple and her face disappear, big eyes shining with happiness and life. She’s raising her hand to her mouth as though she can’t stop laughing but really should. “Jack had just told a really, _really _off-color joke. She had the greatest laugh.”

Cassie smiles down at the photo and tears are close again.

“You should keep it,” Daniel says. “I think there are more, somewhere. I’ll dig them up.”

On an impulse, Cassie leans into Daniel and throws her arms around him, pulling him in tight. She rests her face on his chest, where the cotton of his T-shirt feels soft and somehow comforting, and feels safe and loved. She thinks maybe it’s OK to not feel grown up right this second.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and hopes Daniel knows the thanks are not just for the picture that’s clasped tightly in her hand.

Daniel squeezes her tighter and then lets her go.

“Root beer, huh? Can’t stand the stuff,” he says, smiling that little half-smile that is so Daniel.

“Me neither.”

“Moms don’t know everything.”

“Would you tell Sam that for me? She totally thinks she does.”

Daniel shakes his head. “Would you like to stay for dinner? When I say dinner, I mean takeout, of course.”

Cassie smiles. “Will you tell me some stories about mom? You know. The ones she wouldn’t want me to know.”

Daniel laughs and Cassie is delighted to hear it. It’s difficult, trying to be an adult, taking responsibility for your actions and emotions and their effect on others. But she wants to make her mom proud.

“God,” says Daniel, “where to start …”

“Hey, one more thing. Wanna go shopping this weekend?”

 Daniel winces. “Not really into the whole nails thing, Cass.” He waggles his fingers at her.

“Forget the nails. There’s a new super-cool retro ice cream parlor just opened up. I’ll buy you a real Snow White.”

Daniel smiles. “How can I refuse?”

“Great,” she says brightly, clapping her hands.

Teal’c might be the perfect Happy, but Daniel, with a little work, might just make an ideal understudy. She wants to see him smile some more. Mom would want that.

Daniel closes the garage door with a resounding clang, and they go back inside the house, side by side.


End file.
